George Washington Custis Lee

George Washington Custis Lee (16 September 1832-18 February 1913) was a Confederate States Army Major-General during the American Civil War.

Biography
George Washington Custis Lee was born in Fort Monroe, Virginia in 1832, the oldest son of Robert E. Lee and the older brother of William Henry Fitzhugh Lee and Robert E. Lee Jr.. He graduated first in his class from West Point in 1854, and he served in the US Army Corps of Engineers in Washington DC and at Fort Sumter. When the American Civil War broke out in 1861, he offered his services to the Confederacy, and he was made a Confederate States Army colonel and aide-de-camp to President Jefferson Davis. In June 1863, he was promoted to Brigadier-General, but his father insisted that his job be to obey superiors rather than fighting on the front lines; he commanded the garrison of Richmond at the time of the Battle of Gettysburg. In 1864, he was promoted to Major-General, and he fought for the first and last time at the Battle of Sayler's Creek, three days before his father's surrender at Appomattox. From 1871 to 1897, he served as President of Washington and Lee University, and he died in Alexandria, Virginia in 1913 at the age of 80.